


Drink

by DyslexicBookwyrm72, Lillian_Williams



Series: They Had Feelings For Each Other [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Arguing, Best Friends, Coffee, Ficlet, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Microwaves, Mixed drinks, Plants, Random & Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Tea, but not really, plant torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 16:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19430089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyslexicBookwyrm72/pseuds/DyslexicBookwyrm72, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Williams/pseuds/Lillian_Williams
Summary: All living things have the same basic needs:FoodWaterShelterSafetyAnd CompanionshipA collections of stories about an angel and a demon. Miracles not included. Apocalypse sold separately.An angel and a demon take tea in the demon’s flat and discuss the finer points of botanical husbandry





	Drink

**Author's Note:**

> In true Good Omens fashion asterisk passages can be found at the bottom.
> 
> Have a lovely whatever time of day you see this, enjoy!

**Cuppa A Day Keeps the Herbicide Away**

An angel and a demon take tea in the demon’s flat. Tuesday typically means tea on the angel’s veranda, but as it was too rainy for being out-of-doors and too conspicuous to change the weather, the pair enjoyed their weekly repast in the demons solarium. It was by far the warmest place in Crowley’s flat and the small table in the center of the room fit the tea tray precisely. Almost as if someone had planned it that way.*

“Why are you staring at your plants like that, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, carving into his black currant scone. 

“Have to keep them on their best behavior with winter on its way. Cold weather isn’t an excuse for leaf wilt.” Crowley answered, not looking away from his arabica plant that recently had been trying to brown at its edges. 

“Crowley, they’re tropical plants,” Aziraphale said with an air of bewilderment. 

“So?” Crowley looked over to the angel with his eyebrow raised questioningly. 

“Couldn’t you purchase a light? One of those modern contrivances that create artificial sunlight?” The angel said adding extra sugar to his tea when he thought Crowley wasn’t watching. It was entirely untoward that one should put as much sugar in one’s afternoon tea as Aziraphale did and even if the demon didn’t care he did. Crowley did notice, but never said a word. In fact, he always put twice as much sugar as usual in the bowl when Aziraphale was coming for tea. He would pretend to be interested in something unimportant until the angel had finished dissolving the evidence. 

“If you coddle them they’ll just be more susceptible to the changes in weather. Best they get acclimatised.” The demon raised his voice toward the end, casting his slitted gaze about the room. The angel knew he was right but at what cost he wondered.

“Maybe I should adopt some of your methods my plants keep dying.” Aziraphale daintily sipped at his tea, beginning to let his thoughts wander. His eyes drifting to the still spinning liquid inside his cup

“‘M not sure you have the right… I don’t think it would be for you, angel.” Crowley knew it wasn’t in Aziraphale to be confrontational, let alone mean to helpless plants. To get ideas, Crowley had watched several of his favorite movies about American military recruits training to go to war.

“Well, I have to do something. My bookshop is in desperate need of something living and preferably green.” Aziraphale said thinking of his predominantly brown bookstore, scanning it in his mind’s eye, producing a face like he had just inhaled a bad smell. 

“I thought you picked some up at the last street market we went to? What happened to them?” Crowley asked. He clearly remembered how excited Aziraphale had been, talking about oxygen production and the air purification capabilities of house plants. There had been something about the health benefits too, but Crowley didn’t remember what they were. 

“I may have left it in direct sunlight for an extended period of time. ‘Gainst the express orders of the botanist who gave them to me. I thought they would be fine where they were, but clearly, I miscalculated.” Aziraphale said, his eyes looking about the room guiltily as his fingers fidgeted together. 

“You burned them alive?!” Crowley’s teacup nearly fell to his lap. He righted it and his statement. “Not that it matters to me, they’re not technically alive in the first place, but still.”

“That is kind of our schtick on this side of things.” Aziraphale said with a nervous giggle, “and I think plants are very much alive. I mean they breathe, and they have veins. If you cut them they bleed, and they move and communicate, and oh good god, I’m a murderer…” Aziraphale’s face took on the gaze of someone who had seen an eon pass with their own eyes.

“No, you didn’t mean to, more like negligence than homicide,” Crowley said, trying to comfort the angel. His eyebrows came together in thought, head tilting side to side while he murmured. “Herbicide? Negligent herbicide. Yeah. That sounds right.”

“This is why I run a bookshop and not a flower shop. I’m no good with plants. I haven’t been since the Garden. I think this is the Almighty’s way of punishing me.” Aziraphale pouted slouching down in his seat before immediately correcting his posture. 

“Aziraphale, how long ago did you actually repot the plants?” Crowley asked, leaning forward like a botanical therapist.  
They’d picked them up in flimsy plastic containers meant for seeds and starters. At most, the demon figured, the plants could have been in there for a few months before it would cause severe problems with growth.

“Let me see... It’s been over a year since I’ve repotted most of them. I was waiting until spring. Going to make a day out of it.” The angel said, smiling happily at the thought. “How often should one repot one’s plants?”

“When you get them and then as they grow so that they have room to expand their root systems. You didn’t leave the rest in the things you got them in, right? ‘Cause they’ll get root bound, you know?” Crowley said softly hoping Aziraphale hadn’t suffocated the plants as well. 

“Oh my, well, that’s how most of the potted plants I’ve seen looked. They seemed sturdy enough and all that. I just assumed that was normal for indoor plants” Aziraphale replied with a furrowed brow and a more than guilty expression. “And they always look so dry. I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“Well, you have to water them, Aziraphale. Like consistently. At least once a week. When’s the last time you watered them?” Crowley asked. He had a precise schedule that made no sense to anyone but him. The demon needed more information about what types of plants and what kind of soil the angel had used. Crowley figured if he even thought about asking if Aziraphale had put any sort of plant food schedule into use the angel would feel even worse than he did. And might cry about starving them as well, which was out of the question.

“Ummm. Well. I mean. I watered one on Tuesday and two last Wednesday, and I spray one whenever I walk past it... And, um I poured my cold tea in the one in Classics. The ol’ boy over in Science gets watered at least once a month.” Aziraphale had set his teacup down on its plate. He was looking up thoughtfully as he counted his plants on his fingers. Crowley’s eyes were getting bigger and bigger as his kill tally grew. “Oh, and that one on top of the bookshelf… I guess it has been quite some time since I watered those. The one near the register, I think it used to be a peace lily and the one under the coffee table was a poinsettia it was doing so well, and then I kept the blinds closed a few too days but now its completely dried up... Oh, and then there is the bromeliad on the piano I try and water it regularly, but it doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.”

Aziraphale clenched his hands into fists then threw them down on his lap grumpily. His mouth was turned down in anxious irritation. Crowley blinked at him slowly taking in all the information Aziraphale was unleashing. The demon crossed his leg and braced his hands on his calf, leaning toward the angel and tried to focus. The angel took a quick breath, then continued.

“I think the plant I take the best care of is the evergreen over in Fantasy. I got it as a Christmas tree from a street event I assisted with, and I just loved the idea that once one had removed all the decorations, it was a little piece of the forest that I got to keep...makes one sympathize with the Pagans a little, no?” The angel tipped his head to the side, waiting for a response. 

“I think what you did would kill even the heartiest pothos, angel,” Crowley said in a calm tone, lips pressed tightly together. He opened his mouth to respond to what he could but was cut off.

“I purchased food for them!” Aziraphale said abruptly, changing the subject. “The store had food for both regular plants and flowering plants, and when last I used it, I just mixed it in with the water. It was clearly too much because all the plants died and I’ve been too scared to try again.” The angel said, wringing his hands. 

Crowley stared horrified at the angel. And he thought he was harsh on his plants.

“You have to give them at least a chance. Otherwise, it’s just torture. You have to provide at least the basics, or it’s just-just-” Crowley fumbled for the words, but hell had only prepared him for so much. And he really couldn’t use the terms that were coming to mind as he looked at Aziraphale’s crestfallen face. 

“And would you call repeatedly threatening them basic care?” Aziraphale asked, pursing his lips endeavoring not to sound defensive and failing miserably. He loved nature but was not good at nurturing it. The time he’d spent as a gardener had mostly consisted of miracles and Crowley’s staying up all night to make sure the Dowling’s estate’s plants were well cared for and knew what fear tasted like. 

“Encouragement with consequences. ‘Sides, I heard on the radio once talking to them helps them grow. Needed a new hobby at the time. So far it’s worked out fairly well. In most cases, anyway.” Crowley pointedly glared at the ficus in the corner while taking a threatening sip from his cup. If it kept it up, it would be the next one to leave this building never to return. 

Aziraphale harrumphed, pouting out his lip involuntarily. The demon pulled back from the cup, frowning at it. “Give me a mo’, angel. I’ll be right back.”

Crowley slithered off in the direction of his kitchen and Aziraphale could hear a door opening and closing then a faint beeping followed by a dull hum. After a few moments, there came a soft beep, and what might have been Crowley blessing to himself, before Crowley came back into the room, his mug now steaming. The demon flung himself back into his seat, looking out over the plants and taking an overly long and menacing slurp.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, his lips went slack, but his jaw went tight.

“Crowley, of all the abominations you have forced me to witness, please tell me you did not just reheat your perfectly acceptable Twinning’s tea in the microwave oven when you have an actual stove top? Right! There!” He shouted, gesturing toward the kitchen.

“I did not reheat it in the microwave?” Crowley said as he sipped the tea, he just removed from the microwave. “Come on. It’s just a microwave. They haven’t been dangerous since, like, 1970, no, 1980 something.”

“Crowley, it is currently 1986, you blasphemous miscreant.” Aziraphale sniffed at him. 

“You sure?” Crowley’s mouth scrunched up as he squinted his eyes at the angel. “Huh, that last nap felt like a decade. You sure it isn’t ’96, I’m pretty sure it’s ’96.”*

“You sure it’s not the 14th century?” Aziraphale said in a mocking tone.

Crowley grimaced, hissing through his teeth. “There’s no need for that type of language. Is this ’cause there was coffee still in the cup?” 

The angel’s nostrils flared then his jaw went repugnantly slack.

“What Crow- Crowley… Crowley n- Crowley, NO! Crowley, don’t tell me these things! I may not dream, but an angel needs his sleep and with that in my head-. What no...why? You have more than one cup! Why wouldn’t you?... Crowley. Why?!”

“Why make another dirty dish?” Crowley said with a noisy slurp from his cup

“I can’t...I physically can’t... I wh- Excuse me” Aziraphale disappeared into the kitchen and came back with one of the china cups Crowley pretended not to own. Because the type of human the demon was pretending to be would never own something like real antique bone china teacups. Returning to the table, Aziraphale sat the cup down in front of Crowley, utterly deaf to his protestations. He made the demon a fresh cup of tea and then sat back down with a huff. The angel was still for a moment before his eyes darted back to the cup of...whatever it was that Crowley was drinking.

“Angel, it’s fine,” Crowley whined snatching the cup of reheated tea with a few centimeters of coffee out of the angel’s reach when he went to grab for it. 

“No...NOOO.” Aziraphale whined, standing back up and striding into the kitchen returning with one of Crowley’s double layer titanium coffee mugs filled with coffee and room for the fixings.

“There see?” Aziraphale said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. 

“Now there’s three dirty dishes,” Crowley muttered as he stirred the barest amount of sugar into the coffee then filling it to the brim with milk. 

“Well there could have been two, but you just woke up looking for a fight. What? Did you and your automobile have a disagreement this morning?” The angel hummed at the demon with a tight smile. 

“Hey! Do not bring my car into this!” Crowley crossed his arms and pointed his finger at the cup Aziraphale was glaring at with disgust. “That’s not even that bad, angel. One time I mixed wine and coffee. Now that was a horror to drink.” Crowley threw his head back dramatically, sticking out his forked tongue with a gagging noise.

“YOU WHAT?!?!?! CROWLEY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! WHAT ON THE ALMIGHTY’S GREEN EARTH WOULD POSSESS YOU TO DO A THING LIKE THAT!?!?!?!?!?”

“Not possessed. Just me. This is my body. I’m the only one in here,” Crowley snaked his head slightly back and forth, tapping his temple. “Thank you very much!” Crowley said in an overly thick posh, high pitched voice. His teeth snapping together on the last syllable with a hiss. 

Later passersby could hear the vibration of the glass above them as two ethereal/metaphysical; which is to say occult, beings argued about what constituted as a bad drink well into the night and possibly into the next morning. As to who won well, that would depend on who you asked.*

**Author's Note:**

>  ***** Crowley had not made it that way but would never tell Aziraphale what the real purpose was; to place empty pots on to remind the remaining members of his garden to grow better
> 
>  ***** Aziraphale looked down at his clothes. He was wearing denim. It must be the 90’s. That was the only decade where the fabric was so pervasive that he couldn’t avoid it. 
> 
> ***** Crowley won on principle of knowing the worst drinks. Aziraphale won on knowing better than to drink them. The plants determined that they had all lost and were horrified to learn of the fates some of their genus had to look forward to later in life.


End file.
